07/03/2016
Greetings to all Cricket Lovers!!!
Legends say “Winning is a habit” and that’s exactly what the Team Adobe seems to have developed.
The Team played their 3rd and last league match in CPL VI Tournament against Thomson Reuters on 20th of Feb, at Jaypee Cricket Stadium Ground, Greater Noida.
Having won the toss and elected to bat first, Adobe posted a massive total of 184/3 in 20 overs, thanks to mammoth partnership between Saurabh Dhawan and Mohit Sopori.
With decent efforts in bowling and fielding, we restricted the opponents to 123/7 in 20 overs, winning the match by 61 runs.
Saurabh Dhawan was declared as the Man of the Match for his fantabulous knock of 99*(62).
Dhawan-Sopori pair’s batting brilliance steered the team to Quarter-Finals
Batting:
With green hard top, overcast skies and humid conditions that favors seam-bowling, Saurabh D(captain) was in a dilemma whether to opt for batting first or bowling. Captain had a brief team meeting and finally decided to stick to the team’s strength of batting first. Yet again, a bad start, Hari got bowled on the very first delivery of the match; exposing his weakness of playing spin. Saurabh Dhawan, probably wasn’t expecting that he would be facing the second delivery of the match. Saurabh P looked confident in the middle, but did not last long.
“A day of disappointment for the openers”
With both the openers back in the pavilion before the end of 2nd over, and Dhawan still new at the crease, Mohit S walked in at #4. Lot of questions pending for answers from the senior batsmen –
“Would they take up the responsibility of stabilizing the innings and keep the scorecard ticking!!?
How does the skipper Dhawan handle the situation..?”
Mohit S remained positive and continued to play his natural game, while Dhawan tried to play the deliveries on merit, rotating strike and waiting for the loose ones to score boundaries. Over # 2 3 4, they just tried to get their eye in and get their timing right. Then came the explosion – 10, 10, 11, 11, 12, 9; these were the runs from Over # 5 to 10. That was the period when, the tide turned in Adobe’s favor.
With score of 81 in 10-overs, Team was back in a commanding position and there is no looking-back from there one. Saurabh forced Mohit for some quick runs during this period. When Mohit S started showing signs of exhaustion, Saurabh took up the aggressor role, scoring boundaries and Mohit tried to give most of the strike to his partner.
“A treat to watch the two senior batsmen complimenting each other;
the way they paced their innings to handle difficult & different situations in the middle - A lesson for all the other batsmen in the team”
With bowlers under tremendous pressure, both batsmen well- settled, they(Saurabh and Mohit s) went on their merry ways, piling up the runs and put up “the best partnership of the tournament” – 163(102) for the 3rd wicket. Just 20-odd dot balls, 40% of runs in 1s and 2s, proved how important it is to rotate the strike in any format of the game.
“Running between wickets and strike-rotation are the areas that team seems to have showed consistency in this tournament”
Finally, Mohit S got out in the 19th over, ending his innings with a brilliant and much-needed, supportive knock of 66(45).
With 8 deliveries remaining, Raghuveer was asked to walk-in to take up the role of a pinch hitter. Pitch is just not right for a new batsmen to start hitting from ball-1. With Saurabh on strike for the last over and batting at 84(looking for his century), ran few quick 2s, hit a brilliant straight six over the long-on, almost knocking the team-cameraman(Siva) down; managed to score 15 runs, fell short of his century by 1 run, ending his innings at 99*(62).
The team managed to post a winning total of 184/3 in their 20 overs.
That was one-of-day, when the man-of-the-match in the previous game(Mohit Chordia), was on pads throughout the batting innings and never got a chance to bat. Such was the batting brilliance displayed by DS (Dhawan-Sopori) pair. With due credit to Mohit S for his superb knock, full marks to the Saurabh Dhawan for his much-needed, responsible, fantabulous, match-winning captain’s knock. Looks like Dhawan settled his long pending dues with this innings.
Bowling:
With absolutely no pressure on the bowlers defending a target of 185, the ask was to bowl discipline and not to experiment. Hari and Anurag opened the bowling, sent the openers back to the pavilion(picked 1-wicket each), but went for few runs. Hari continued to induce fear in batsmen mind with his pace, ending his spell with 3-0-22-1. Arjun was brought in as the first change bowler, who made the best use of the conditions. The green hard topped pitch and the humidity in the air, assisted Arjun’s bowling; he bowled at right areas and swung the ball in-the-air and of-the-pitch, picked up 2 wickets in his first two overs. The batsmen found it very hard to put bat to ball, when Arjun was bowling.
“probably the best spells Arjun had bowled in this tournament”
With ball swing around, Saurabh continued with Arjun. Anurag bowled just 2 overs for 17/1. Spin(Siva) was introduced from the other end. He was economical in his first two overs, but went for runs in the next two. Arjun ended his brilliant spell of 4 overs with figures of 8/2. With pitch assisting seamers, back-up seamer Mohit S was introduced, bowled his 2-over spell for 6/1. Amritans who replaced Siva, also went for few runs. On a pitch with hardly any assistance for spin, both the main spinners(Siva and Amritans) in the side, went for quite a few runs, completing their spells with 27/0 and 32/0.
“A day when the main-spinners went wicket-less”
With asking rate out of reach and pressure mounting up, the opponents were never in the chase. With couple of overs remaining, and asking rate beyond the reach captain tried his part-time spinners, Saurabh P and Shikhar, who completed their 1-over spells with 4/0 and 2/2. Shikhar with his changed bowling action was slow through the air to provide extra loop, picked 2 wickets in the 20th over. The opponents managed 123/8 in their 20-overs giving the Adobe their biggest win in the tournament to secure their spot in the quarter-finals.
Fielding:
There are few lapses in the fielding - two drop catches, few over-throws and couple of mid-fields in the deep, which were affordable when team has a huge total on the board to back those.
One has to feel sorry for Mohit C for being with pads on throughout the match. He was good behind the stumps and hurt his finger while collecting a delivery from Hari. Mohit S and Aditya hurt themselves on the field while trying to take catches. Nothing serious and all the 3 should be fit before the next match. There is absolutely no pressure on Saurabh to experiment with his bowling tactics or field positions.
“Need more focus in the department of fielding, in the knock-outs”
Last, but not the least, would like to thank Rajesh and Pranav for coming all the way to the stadium, to support the team.
Rajesh extended his support for the team, though not being part of the playing 12.
Pranav, though not part of the team cricket, has come to spend time with the team, encouraging and supporting them through-out.
This really means a lot to the team and definitely makes a positive impact on the players.
Team would really love to see more Rajesh’s and Pranav’s for the next match.
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Score Cards
For more pics and videos: \\chinar-svr\transfer\deosingh\CPL\20-Feb Vs Thomson Reuters\
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